Ed Paschke, a renowned Chicago artist and Northwestern art theory and practice professor, died in his sleep on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 25. He was 65.
For 27 years, Paschke — sometimes referred to as Chicago’s most important and influential artist — was an integral part of the NU art community.
Art theory and practice Prof. William Conger said in an e-mail that he admired Paschke’s ability to combine a very informal, witty teaching style with meticulous organization of tasks.
“He was deeply committed to teaching and always had detailed goals for every session,” Conger said. “He treated his students as if they were his honored guests.”
Paschke also had an excellent rapport with his colleagues.
“Ed’s colleagues at Northwestern and across the country admired his professionalism, enormous energy, and unmatched generosity in giving his time and art for many valued causes,” Conger wrote.
While Paschke was an esteemed member of NU’s teaching staff, his art also had a widespread influence.
He received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine arts from the Art Institute of Chicago, and recently has been recognized with several lifetime achievement awards. A 2000 Guggenheim Fellow, Paschke has art pieces in public collections at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian in Washington, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and the Musee d’Art Moderne Nationale in Paris.
Conger described Paschke’s work as “always bridging some contradiction, some conundrum, some ambiguity.”
Drawing influences from surrealism and pop art, as well as renowned artists such as Seurat, Picasso and Gauguin, Paschke was part of Chicago’s Imagist movement beginning in the 1960s.
“Ed Paschke’s work presented reality as if it were subsumed by the popular and often vulgar and garish images of mass media,” Conger wrote. “Yet there was always a deep and sympathetic humanism in his work which lifts it above the merely ironic.”
The Art Institute of Chicago published its “Ed Paschke Retrospective” in 1990 — the only retrospective at the time to feature a living Art Institute alumnus.
According to Conger, Paschke’s work played a huge role in establishing Chicago as a major art center after the 1960s and also in defining American art in the latter part of the 20th century.
“I believe that Ed Paschke was the most important visual artist ever to have lived and worked in Chicago,” Conger said. “No matter how commonplace something might be, Ed could find in it something fresh, funny, profound.”
Reach Kristyn Schiavone at [email protected].
